RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/08/is_apple_gearing_up_for_chinastyle_internet_control_in_the_us.html

Recently, Apple announced that it will deploy a new algorithm, NeuralMatch, to monitor iMessages and images on its devices. The ostensible purpose is to scan for photos containing nudity sent by or to children and also for photos of nude or seminude children. If a number of suspect images are backed up to an iCloud account, they will be decrypted and inspected, and the user reported to law enforcement. Police could then investigate or prosecute the user for possession of child pornography or for child sex abuse or other offences. But, well-intentioned as the motive may sound, this is a matter of grave concern for privacy. Once such surveillance is begun, it opens the gates for other tech firms to follow suit, and worse, for warrantless scans for nefarious government purposes.

Coming as it does from Apple, this is a curious development in the U.S. For although Apple has bent over backwards to please the Chinese government on its surveillance and censorship needs, it has vehemently resisted assisting the U.S. government. It has refused to unlock cellphones for criminal investigations and prosecutions, citing concerns about protecting the data and privacy of its customers. It has received — and objected to — at least 10 requests from federal courts for extracting date from locked iPhones. But now, in a complete turnabout, if Apple thinks (or its algorithm decides) that certain images are illegal, it will cooperate with the authorities.

In 2016, the FBI asked Apple to unlock a phone used by one of the Islamic terrorists who attacked the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health, murdering 14 people and injuring 22. Apple declined, citing a corporate policy to never undermine the security features of its products. Following another terrorist attack at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida, in 2019, Apple again rejected a government request to unlock the perpetrator’s phone. Then-Attorney General William Barr insisted that tech companies have an obligation to give law enforcement access to encrypted devices, but Apple refused. It said doing so would weaken encryption and thus jeopardize the data security of its customers.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/borax-door-to-door-salesman-statesmanship-joe-biden-presidency-administration-11629921697?mod=opinion_lead_pos9

Joe Biden is the 46th U.S. president, the military’s commander in chief, leader of the free world. So why can’t I take him seriously? When he steps out to make a speech or give a rare press conference, he looks as if he is setting out to do a commercial to sell me gutters or roofing shingles. Mr. Biden strikes me as the Borax Man—a term from my Chicago youth for that slick salesman, whom you are always mistaken to allow in your house.

The Borax Man was a familiar type when I was growing up. So familiar that I dropped such a character, whom I named Sy Bourget, into a short story of mine called “Kaplan’s Big Deal.” In that story I wrote: “Bourget—he didn’t pronounce the t in his name—was so good, it used to be said, that he could sell aluminum siding to people who lived in high-rise buildings.” A main chancer, he studied human motives “toward the end of manipulating others to say yes.” Everyone, he believed, “was an operator, or at least wanted to be, and the only difference between people was that there were those who operated successfully and those who didn’t. Winners and losers, the old story.”

The problem Mr. Biden presents is that it is difficult to believe anything he says. The reason is that it is hard to believe that he himself really believes in much of anything, except getting ahead. As the American president—thanks to his good luck in having Donald Trump for an opponent—he has now surely accomplished this in excelsis.

Yet Mr. Biden lacks the convincing solemnity of manner, the gravitas that all world leaders, the fate of millions riding on their decisions, require. Instead he comes off as a man with little introspection and even less penetration into the problems facing the world. At a moment of crisis, these deficiencies carry grave consequences.

https://jimtreacher.substack.com/p/biden-sank-afghanistan-and-now-hes

As a wise man once said, you should never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. But when it comes to current events in Afghanistan, the Biden administration is spewing out plenty of both.

Biden gave yet another “press conference” Tuesday, although none of them have been actual press conferences. He just reads off a teleprompter for a few minutes, and then turns around and walks right out as the press yells at him.

We’re getting used to this image by now:

Literally turning his back on Americans in trouble is becoming a daily ritual for Biden. If he knew we’d be seeing so much of him from this angle, he would’ve gotten some more of those plugs on top.

Biden was five hours late to his own scheduled “press conference,” and there was no point in having any reporters there in the first place. The only time he’s answered any questions about this Afghanistan debacle was when he humiliated himself in front of George Stephanopoulos, of all people.

Jen Psaki did take questions from the press, for all the good it did anyone. Remember when she got all theatrically outraged at the very idea that Americans are stranded in Afghanistan? That was Monday. The very next day, she admitted that yes, there are Americans stranded in Afghanistan:

Is it just me, or does she seem very nervous and twitchy?1 If she keeps yanking at her hair like that, she’ll have a big bald spot like her boss. The way this Afghanistan debacle is going, it’ll take a lot more than Democrat operatives making #PsakiBomb trend on Twitter to fool people into thinking she’s popular.

https://www.nysun.com/national/the-biden-soros-paradox/91629/

Americans elected President Trump in 2016 and President Obama and Vice President Biden before that on, in part, promises to end “endless wars” and bring our troops home. Now that Mr. Biden is following through on that in Afghanistan, polls show his job-approval sinking.

How to explain the apparent paradox? Americans seem to want to end wars and bring the troops home, but when they see the actual consequences of doing that, they blame the politicians.

Part of the apparent contradiction is in the incompleteness of the rhetorical framing, whether from the politician or a pollster. No presidential candidate who wants to get elected runs around Iowa and New Hampshire saying, “I’m going to end the wars and bring the troops home, even if that means the countries the troops were in revert to their previous status as terrorist bases and even if that means women’s rights in those countries are set back to the dark ages.”

No pollster asks, “How many two-year-old children trampled to death on the chaotic outskirts of the Kabul airport are an acceptable tradeoff for bringing the troops home?”

The most conflicted is the billionaire George Soros. The Washington Free Beacon illustrated its editorial on the Afghanistan humiliation with a photo of Mr. Soros, noting that he had funded, in the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a group that aimed to “bring the forces against endless war on the Left and the Right together.”

Yet Mr. Soros himself tweeted August 17 that his Open Society Foundations had created “a $10 million Afghanistan emergency fund to support Afghans in grave danger — including champions of human rights, women’s rights, and journalists.”

The press release quoted the president of the Open Society Foundations, Mark Malloch-Brown, as insisting, “We remain deeply committed to Afghans and their efforts to help the country advance toward a more open society. We call on funders to join us in our response to this urgent humanitarian crisis. There is truly not a moment to waste.”

The “urgent humanitarian crisis” erupted after Mr. Biden followed the policy course that the Soros-funded Quincy Institute advocated. I’m not sure whether the right word for it is hypocrisy or tragedy.

The Open Society press release said the money would “support sponsorship for humanitarian parole programs in the United States that provide a pathway to temporary refuge for those in harm’s way… bolster international relief organizations in their efforts to support Afghan citizens fleeing the Taliban advance.” The money would also “aid other efforts to deliver humanitarian relief to internally displaced Afghans and those fleeing to other countries taking them in.”